Rotisserie accessories for barbecue grills are well known in the art. Most incorporate rotisserie motors which are fixed to a side of the firebox of a barbecue grill, generally above a barbecue grill side table or shelf. Many manufacturers include pre-drilled holes and slots in the side of the firebox. The pre-drilled holes serve to accommodate a motor mounting bracket while the slots are configured to support the rotisserie spit above the heat source. The Weber® publication no. 96810, “Gas Barbecue Rotisserie Instructions,” dated September 1998, provides an exemplary rotisserie accessory which is configured to be mounted in such a manner, and is incorporated herein by reference. This publication is currently available over the internet at www.weber.com.
The previously mentioned rotisserie configuration presents some problems. For example, since the mounting bracket is bolted to the side of the firebox, one can appreciate that it is difficult and/or inconvenient to remove the bracket from the firebox when the rotisserie is not being used. It is believed that most consumers do not put forth the effort to unbolt the accessory when using the grill in a conventional manner and instead leave the motor and/or the mounting bracket permanently in place. The motor and mounting bracket, therefore, unnecessarily block space on the barbecue grill side table, which would otherwise be usable if the motor and bracket were removed.
Other prior art rotisseries are disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication 2005/0092188, application Ser. No. 10/966,053 (“Huegerich”) and U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0266228, application Ser. No. 11/388,617 (“Ritterling”). These prior art designs incorporate a rotisserie motor into the base of the grill, wherein the rotisserie motor is operably connected to the rotisserie spit by means of a chain or pulley system.
The rotisseries disclosed in these two application suffer from several problems. For example, since many of the rotisserie components are disposed within the base and the cooking chamber, valuable cooking surface area is lost. For this reason, it may be preferable to place the rotisserie driver outside of the cooking chamber to free up the cooking surface. This is true whether the rotisserie driver takes form as the motor itself (direct drive configuration) or some extension thereof (indirect drive configuration, where the motor is operably connected to the driver by means of chains, pulleys, or the like). Also, the rotisserie design disclosed by these references are quite complex; as such, it may be difficult to replace failed components. Moreover, the complex configuration is believed to be much more expensive to manufacture and more difficult to assemble than other prior art designs. Under certain circumstances, a direct drive configuration would be preferable since such a configuration uses fewer moving parts. Even further, the design of Ritterling's rotisserie may present some safety hazards. For example, because the rotisserie arms of Ritterling are disposed within the cooking chamber, they will most likely become extremely hot during use of the grill. It is possible that a consumer, who forgets to deploy the rotisserie arm before starting the grill or who decides the rotisserie is no longer needed, could burn himself if he attempted to grasp the arm's handle.